Um you probably figured that out though. Let me pray. And then let's launch into this. Lord When we think of the sweetness of your gracious gospel. It it is staggering.
Um forgive us for times it hasn't staggered us. And Lord, I want to ask you to move in our hearts and to call us to a place this morning where we would just spend the next 35 minutes or so just worshiping you. over the good gospel you've given. to celebrate it. And Lord, um To maybe be introduced to it.
Afresh. And so we thank you, Lord, for your faithfulness. We thank you for your mercy. Lord, we do hold up the sanctity of life that we have heard of this morning, and we thank you for Reagan's presentation. We thank you for the PRC.
We thank you for just much of the PRC leadership that attends this church. And we're so thankful to be able to be so closely knit to that ministry. We love it. We celebrate it. We are unashamedly pro-life in this church.
Unashamed of that. We don't flinch at that. We don't politicize it.
Okay. That moral issue sits on our soul, and Lord God, I pray that you would protect life. What? And so I pray that you would encourage us and walk with us today. And may we walk from womb, as it were, to the wonder of eternal life in Jesus' name.
Amen. Yeah. By the way, one other thing, you heard about the baby bottle thing, and I saw that up there, and it talks about your spare change and stuff. And I always encourage our church. I'm a competitive person, and so I always check in with George to see.
I know that surprises you, but I check in to see if we're number one or not in the valley on the PRC thing.
So what I want to do is just guilt you and say, don't let me down. And let's be the number one church in giving to the baby bottle campaign, okay? Do not shame me.
Now, let's move into the text. Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. I'm going to read you a passage of Scripture. As we head there.
Martha Said to Jesus, This is John 11. twenty three. through 26. Lord, if you had been here. My brother would not have died.
But even now I know that whatever you ask from God God'll give you. And Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again. And I I love her response. It's filled with faith. And yet it misunderstands what Jesus is getting at.
Martha said to him, I know that he'll rise again in the resurrection on the last day. And she's right. And Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And every one of you who lives and believes in me shall never die.
Do you believe this? And you know the rest of the story, probably. I say she was right, but wrong in that she was right that he would rise at the end. of all things. but he was about to rise in a few minutes.
Christ was going to raise him physically right there from. The Dead. And it became a tipping point for the religious leaders. It was after that that they looked and said, okay, we're done with this guy, we're going to kill him. And it was a precursor.
It was the first bookend on a shelf, as it were. For the movement to Jesus. own death. and resurrection. It's kicked off by Lazarus.
Rising from the dead. That in and of itself was not just the bookend on this side of the shelf here to that. End of the shelf of Jesus dying and rising from the dead, but even further down the line, a precursor, a foreshadowing of our resurrection from the dead, so that he can say, I am the resurrection and the life.
Now I want you to go to Ephesians. Chapter 2, we saw a few weeks ago verses 1 through 3. And it was a sobering message about sin. Do we need to read and begin in verse 1? Look there with me.
If you need a Bible, there are Bibles on the racks in front of you, grab it. Wanna make sure you have a Bible and you were dead Verse one and the trespasses and sins, two ways of talking about the same thing. In which you once walked, you practically walk this out in your life, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work, in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived, in the passions of our flesh, carrying out. the desires of The body and the mind. And we're by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
And so we get this picture through verses 1 through 3 that we talked about. You are Sunk. I am sunk. I'm dead in the water. I don't have life within me.
We'll come back and talk even more about that, but I want you just to keep that in view. This is a way that you are to think About, if you're a believer, here your past narrative. If you are not a Christian, your present narrative. You're to see yourself in verses one through three. And then we pick up.
This idea of being made alive.
Now he'll use that term specifically. I extrapolated it out to the title itself because it captures the big picture. You've moving from death to life. And as we go, I want to look at two facets of this. And we'll look at a couple different aspects of each facet.
But I just want to see two facets. of this Picture. Of our movement from death to life. And the first facet is: I want you to see how amazing it is. That's where he starts.
He starts with just the s the magnitude of it. Understanding, getting your minds around what it is. In terms of how it is the expression, namely, of the character of God.
So inverse For you get this phrase, and Rob last week referenced this. You get the phrase. But God Now along the way in Scripture, sometimes you'll see this show up. Right? There's this phrase at different points.
But God, let me give you one of them. 1 Corinthians 1:26 through 29. For consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you. We're wise according to worldly standards.
Not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God. Chose what is foolish. In the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.
God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
Now that, in a way, is its own summary of this text. It's saying essentially the same thing and it ends in the same place. But God did something. That's very important to note. Because for the most part, The collection of religious systems and the collection of isms in the world.
Focus upon something that you and I either do independent of God or do in harmony and assistance with God in some way. And this is what sits and makes Christianity largely unique and extraordinary. Let me give you a couple of facets. that even sit under this larger issue and facet. He's going to show it in two ways.
And they run together, so we can't separate them, but it's really in verses 4 through 7. And you're going to see first a demonstration and how it is demonstrated: the magnitude of this, the majesty of salvation. In, and maybe we could say out of. the attributes of God. There are four of them that show up.
And we'll just put these up here for you, and let's see it together. Uh But God Being rich. And you should note that word riches there. Later on in the verse 4, he'll say great. In verse 7, he comes back to the eye of riches because the idea when it comes to the attributes of God is that God's character, and this is important to note because it's the ground of everything in the gospel.
God's character is simply always fully on display. Um At bottom, we can trust the gospel. One of the reasons why you can bank on Your eternal salvation. In fact, the reason is not so much the promise of God. Although The promise of God is true.
It's not so much Even the elements in the gospel itself, although that's true. And they play into that. The reason they play into that is because they play out of his character. I trust the gospel. Because I know God's character.
That is to say, he can't do otherwise than what we're going to read.
So, to waffle into wonder and to doubt and to feel like in space, somehow maybe this thing won't materialize for me because I've done too much wrong is not an issue of you and your self-identity. And we don't solve it by getting into your psyche. We solve it by going back and gazing at the magnitude of the character of God. And we look at God's character and we go, can you believe he's like that? He can't be otherwise.
So everything is anchored back to God. The moment you start anchoring it to your performance, guess what? You're done. You're done. I'm done.
It is rooted in the character of God.
So what do we see about his character? But God being rich in mercy is the first character trait that's mentioned here. Eleos in the Greek. I want you just to think of one thing with this. We could spend the whole morning about mercy.
One thing I want you to think about. 200 times. In the Greek Septuagint, this term Eleos is used to translate 200 times the Hebrew word chesed. That is important because the Hebrew word hesed is rooted in a theological concept of God's covenant. Faithful, loyal, devoted, steadfast, abiding love.
For you. And he chooses 200 times the translators. to not translate it. With agape. To not translate it with uh phileo or something like that would be a little odd, but agape wouldn't be odd.
But Instead. To translate it with mercy.
So, when I see the mercy of God in Scripture as it regards my salvation, what I'm supposed to do. Is do two things in my mind. One is I'm supposed to understand that mercy defined is not some sort of we have little phrases like well it's when you you don't get what you do deserve God has mercy on you and that's that's kind of cute and maybe helps you remember something but it might help you remember a really bad definition for it Here's what mercy is: mercy is the affections of God. that erupt from his character. Because I am pitiful.
Because I am pitiful. That is, that it is what happens when God's affectionate character. Bumps up against my organic state. And I'm pitiful, and God says. Uh o okay.
I'll have mercy on you. If he didn't, I would be left Utterly unable to do anything in my life. But God is rich, it says, in mercy. The richest in mercy, because of the great love. Uh agape.
Here is the term, but what I want you to see is with which he loved us. And then verse 5, even when we were dead in our trespasses.
So, what this tells us. is that love is not That thing That is reactionary to the state of the creature in the sense that it looks and sees something lovely. Right? Lovely? Love love doesn't look At God's love, doesn't look and see how write a beautiful Valentine card to you.
About how lovely and amazing you are, and then signs it and says, These are all the reasons. That I love you. Do you know That there are no reasons in you why God loves you. You know that? There's no reasons in you why God loves you.
There's no I love you because. For God. God's love for you. Boomerang's back. to his own character.
That is, he just can't not. Love. You. Literally He it it's it's it's theologically true to say something like this. The infinite God of the universe.
Can't. Help himself. But love you. Think about that. He can't help himself.
Why? Because he would have to deny his own character to help himself to love you. He can't. He can't help himself but love you. Right, so we get verses like in Romans 5:8, but God commends his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners.
But Christ died. Think of you in your darkest sin practicing your darkest sin. Practicing it. His love is as strong for you there as it is in the moment of the sweetness of you exalting his name and raising your hands in worship. And he loves you as much there as he does here.
Rich In love. Rich. In mercy, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace. He mentions grace. You've been saved, raised us up with him, seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his.
And we get grace again, the power of God at work in your life. We'll talk more about grace. But the power of God showing up in your depleted state. In Kindness. Romans 2.4.
Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness? in forbearance and patience, Not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance. If you're here and you haven't given your life to Christ, you are probably not right now thinking, I am. living a presumptuous life. But you are.
Because God who sustains your breath God, who lets his common grace fall on you, God, who enables every good thing that has ever come from your life. is kind to you. It's kind of you. And the kindest Aspect. of his kindness.
Is that he would expose to you the truth of verses 1 through 3 that I read to you. That you would see inside your life. in what you think is moral beauty. is a project of self-glorification. And that you would see inside that, and that he would expose that, and that his kindness would bring you to a place to say, I need you.
His kindness. Let me give you one other use of this word kindness, because it's often translated as good. Goodness. And I love this. Luke 5.39.
And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine. I don't know if you like a good glass of wine here or you like an old vintage. Here's what it says No one after drinking old wine desires new. For he says, the old is There it is. Good as it's translated.
But it's the same word for kindness. Yeah, think about it. The idea is like sipping on the kindness of God is like drinking the best of spiritual wine. It's as though you get the best vintage here. Why would you want anything?
else. It's delectable. That the kindness of God would fall on you.
So in this text, verse 1 through 7, these four attributes show up. And I just want to establish: salvation is a movement from the character of God. That's why you bank on it. That that's why. You can trust it.
That's why it's reliable. That's why it's dependable. It's because it's an issue of the character of God. Secondly, it's demonstrated in the actions of God.
Now, I'll put these three up here. You saw them when we read them. I mentioned them a couple of weeks ago when we were talking. These are the controlling verbs of the long sentence that goes through at least verse 7, possibly all the way through verse 9 in the Greek. We read in verse Five, even when we were dead in our trespasses.
Mm-hmm. Alive. Um these are what are called aorist verbs in the Greek. And if you have been in church, sometimes you may in other churches possibly you may have heard a preacher say something like the aorist verb is a verb that's like a one point in time kind of a thing. And that's not really what an aorist is.
It's not really a good way to think about it, to be honest. The best way to think about an aorist verb is the way that you think about a Polaroid picture. A Polaroid picture. It's capturing an event. You don't know much about the event.
You don't know much about its duration. You don't know how long it went, or so forth, or whether it's fully over or not. The Arist isn't telling us all that stuff necessarily. The Arist is just sort of saying, here's what happened.
Now, this is called an arist active, and so this is like what God. has done Right? And God does, in a sense, and you get a Polaroid of God's normative action here. And the Polaroid is He made. Us.
Alive. Mm-hmm. Now I want to say something about this that's really important. Um When I went to Jordan back in the fall. Mm-hmm.
One of the things, here's a free piece, I'm like Condonest or whatever, I'm a free piece of travel advice for you. If you fly a long trip overseas. One of the things that you won't think about unless you consciously do is that a flight actually causes your body in a long flight. You get out past seven hours or so. Your body gets dehydrated.
in the airplane. And when you land, you actually have to consciously fuel your body more than you would.
Now, you don't want to do that because you're sitting in your seat and you don't want to have the person next to you get up because you got to go peepee. And that's why you don't. But you should. But you should. You drink a lot.
If you're coming with us in next fall, we're taking that big trip to Turkey and Greece and Italy, you should drink a lot during that time. Non-alcoholic beverages, but drink a lot on the plane. You need to do that for your system.
Well, I didn't do that. And so I landed and didn't realize and I wasn't feeling well. We're going and starting to tour sites. And man, I'm starting to feel sick and not doing so well.
So Eric Selinsky, who goes here to church and is a PA, Works at Primary Children's Hospital. Was with us, great guy. And he introduced me to: anybody drink liquid IVs here? Anyone drink those? They're like those things you put the powder in your water and oh, I love 'em.
I like live on 'em now. They're amazing.
So he introduces me. He's like, here, take this, shake it up. A shaking bum. He's like, D you don't have to drink it that fast. I'm like, get it up.
S I gotta have it.
So I guzzle it. And I couldn't believe it. It's like a new man.
Now later I started feeling down again give me another one. I was like an addict. Junior Buying and selling them in the back of the bus. It's unbelievable. Fantastic.
The gospel is not that. It's not that. I was thinking about it. I'm like, what's a good metaphor for that? Maybe it's that liquid IV.
I thought, oh, that's heresy. Why? Because you're not sick. You're dead! That's important.
Do you know that every works-based religion tells you you're sick? That's what it's telling you. You're s you're not well. You need to get well. No, no.
You did? You're dead. You need to come alive. You know what a liquid IV will not do? Raise the dead.
The gospel is not enhancement. The gospel is not a tweak. The gospel is not a tune-up. The gospel is a movement. From abject, useless, lifeless.
Death. To life. You can't take in anything that will raise you from the dead.
Someone else has to raise you from the dead. You know why? Because you're dead. He makes You alive. He raises You up.
He raises you up. Think of made alive as he gives you vigor. to raise you up. Is now he begins to open your eyes that you might have resurrection life, you get vision. To be able to see, I'll come back to that.
And then it says that He, we are seated with Him in the heavenlies or in the heavenly realms. And earlier in Ephesians, we talked about what that meant. It meant that you're transitioned into a different dimension of existence where you now have an exist, even now, you exist in a spiritual realm. in that way. You're alive in a spiritual realm.
You're seated with him. What's that? That's victory. That's the picture from going back to Psalm 110, that Jesus will have victory and he'll use those enemies as a footstool for his feet. And it's as though in the gospel he comes and says, Sit right alongside me.
Exalted alongside to participate in the reigning victory seated with him.
So he moves in these three ways, right? These action points. Middle eye. Raised up. Seated.
with him.
Now, I have shared this illustration in this church. It's been years since I've done it. And so, if you have been here for years and you recall it, you have a great memory, which is wonderful. But It's just as beautiful a picture and as beautiful writing as I can think of. to portray an idea.
Um in the late 70s. Annie Dillard. Who's a remarkable writer, the kind of writer that other writers would like to be when they grow up? Wrote a book called Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.
Now, one thing you should know about Tinker Creek is you might romanticize Tinker Creek and think it's this beautiful, it's a real creek near her home, kind of in the Roanoke, Virginia area. And you might think Tinker Creek is this little pristine, little beautiful mountain stream that's out in the middle of nowhere. And as she writes about it, you would get that picture. But Tinker Creek is a little bit more like the Jordan River. down here in the middle of the valley.
It runs kind of through like an urban area. It's got like the little like, you know, biking path alongside it and, you know, has also the styrofoam container alongside the bank and all those kinds of things. That's the kind of thing Tinker Creek is. That's not what you get when you read the book. You get pristine mountain stream somewhere.
What she does in the book is she walks along Tinker Creek. And she is sort of like almost like Walden-esque in how she does it. But she takes these natural observations that she sees and. Sees in ways we don't often see and pulls out of them. Things about life, things about creation, things about vitality.
I have no idea her any kind of faith commitment that she has or doesn't have. Yeah. But in one particular poignant section of this, in a section called Seeing. Uh She tells the story of a book that she read. And the book she read was by a man named Marius von Senden called Space and Sight.
And it was a book. About um When cataract surgery became the new technology, in the medical profession dealing with eye surgeries. Surgeons ranged all across Europe and America. giving this surgery to people who had had cataracts from birth.
So they were born blind. But the blindness was caused by congenital cataracts. And so they gave these surgeries and then Von Senden wrote a book upon analyzing the cases and interviewing the people who were now adults or teenagers who were seeing for the first time. And he analyzed them psychologically, socially, and relationally. to see what life was like for them when they first saw It's fascinating.
And I'm going to read you a lengthy section. She talks about how some people struggled. And and and uh Uh Some of them even like would close their eyes and not want to engage the world. Because it was so disquieting to them and it was such a mental challenge to figure out what they were seeing. Think about it, they had no way of telling distance.
There was a guy sh that he talked about that would throw a boot. and would try to then measure and he would the boot would be out where the third row is, but he would reach down and try to grab it here, 'cause he had no way of understanding. All that they would see were just color patches laid upon each other, and they're walking through a sea of color patches.
Okay. On the other hand, she writes, many newly cited people speak well of the world. And teach us how dull is our own vision. To one patient, a human hand unrecognized is something bright and then holes. Shown a bunch of grapes, a boy calls out, it's dark, blue, and shiny.
It isn't smooth. It has bumps and hollows. You've you've probably never thought of grapes that way. A little girl visits a garden. She's greatly astonished and can scarcely be persuaded to answer, stands speechless in front of the tree, which she only names on taking hold of it, and then as the tree with the lights in it.
Some delight in their sight and give themselves over to the visual world. Of a patient just after her bandages were removed, her doctor writes, quote, the first things to attract her attention were her own hands. She looked at them very closely, moved them repeatedly to and fro, bent, stretched the fingers, seemed greatly astonished at the sight. One girl was eager to tell her blind friend that men don't really look like trees at all. And astounded to discover that her every visitor had an utterly different face.
Finally, a twenty-two-year-old girl was dazzled by the world's brightness, kept her eyes shut for two weeks. When at the end of that time she opened her eyes again she did not recognize any objects but the more she now directed her gaze upon everything about her, the more it could be seen how an expression of gratification and astonishment overspread her features, she repeatedly exclaimed, O God, how Beautiful. Mm-hmm. And then Dillard says, I saw color patches for weeks after I read this wonderful book. It was summer.
The peaches were ripe in the valley orchards. When I woke in the morning, color patches wrapped round my eyes intricately, leaving not one unfilled spot. All day long I walked among shifting color patches that parted before me like the Red Sea. and closed again in silence, transfigured wherever I looked back.
Some patches swelled and loomed, while others vanished utterly, and dark marks flitted at random over the whole dazzling sweep, but I couldn't sustain the illusion. It's important. I couldn't sustain the illusion of flatness. I've been around for too long. Form is condemned to an eternal dance macabre with meaning.
I couldn't unpeach the peaches. It's a famous line, she says. That is, I I looked at a peach and it was just a peach. I couldn't see the wonder of it. Nor can I remember ever having seen without understanding.
The colour patches of infancy are lost. My brain then, when she was an infant, she says, must have been smooth as any balloon. I'm told I reached for the moon, many babies do. But the color patches of infancy swelled as meaning filled them. They arrayed themselves in solemn ranks down distance which unrolled and stretched before me like a plain.
The moon rocketed away. I live now in a world of shadows that shape and distance color, a world where space makes a kind of terrible sense. What Gnosticism is this and what physics? The fluttering patch I saw in my nursery window, silver and green, shape-shifting blue, is gone. A row of lombardy poplars takes its place mute across the distant lawn, that humming oblong creature talking about the moon.
Pale as light that stole along the walls of my room at night, stretching exhilaratingly around the corners, is gone too. Gone the night I ate the bittersweet fruit, put two and two together and puckered forever my brain. Martin Buber tells this tale. Rabbi Mendel once boasted to his teacher, Rabbi Elimelech, that evenings he saw the angel who rolls away the light before the darkness, and mornings the angel who rolls away the darkness before the light. Said Rabbi Elimelech, In my youth I saw that too.
Later on you don't see these things anymore. And then she says this in closing, Why didn't someone hand those newly sighted people paints and brushes from the start? when they still didn't know what anything was. Then maybe we all could see color patches too, the world unraveled from reason. Eden.
Before Adam gave names. You see that? Maybe You could see afresh. That's what this message is about. To look and say, I was dead and I'm made alive.
I'm raised up. I'm seated with him. I can see new. I see afresh You may have been a believer so long, That it's just this. Assumption in the morning.
It's just what you do in your day. The gospel is that thing that walks alongside you, and it's the old coat you put on to keep you warm. The gospel is not a warm coat. The gospel is not. IV.
The gospel is not a pack of vitamins. The gospel is not a YouTube video that helps you accomplish something. The gospel is the transformation from death to life. It is from darkness to light. It is from completely being blind to now being able to see for the very first time.
Don't ever let that grow old. Don't ever let it become same old, same old. It's the second facet quickly. It's found in verses 8 through 9, which are utterly familiar. They're like one of the first two or three scripture verses that young people memorize in church, right?
For by grace You have been saved through Faith. And this not of your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. What I want to do is just give you a simple explanation. Beautiful. crucial and vital.
Verses. This is the means of God's salvation. And we can just break it down in two things. First is what is it and the next will be what it's not. Paul he's saying.
What is it? And I'm going to give you a phrase that summarizes what the Greek is saying it is. It's a fully provided gift of grace from God. Where do we get that? Look in verse 8.
For by grace, for by the power, unmerited power. Undeserved power of God, that's grace. You have been saved. A perfect passive Participle. And you should celebrate that.
You should get a big gold chain that says perfect passive participle. is walk around with it. It is the idea being passive. That you didn't do it, God did it. It's a participle.
which gives an idea that it's got this ongoing kind of thing in your life. And it's a Perfect. And the perfect is communicating to us that it's something that was done in past time. the effects of which are still being felt.
So it's completed. But it's like an explosion that's completed. and it leaves something in its train. that you go, something happened. That happened because God did it and did it fully.
And he keeps the effects of that alive in your life. Fully Provided. Gift of grace from God. Look at the text. It is, by grace you've been saved through faith.
And I've shared this with you before, but we need to mention it. And this is not your undoing.
So much like Spanish. You have nouns that have gender. Right? We don't typically have this in the same way in English. Cat doesn't have a gender with it, right?
But in Spanish it's el gato. Huh? That's a pretty good accent. Yeah. El Gato.
It's Masculine. in that way. And Greek, you have words in and they have a gender.
So faith is feminine. Grace is feminine. Which means then that A pronoun that refers to faith would be feminine. A pronoun that refers to grace would be feminine, and yet when we read this, we get a little pronoun tuta here. For by grace you've been saved through faith and tutah.
is not your own doing. Tuta is not feminine. What is it? It's neuter. And that's important.
Yeah. And it's important because it's not referring to grace. And it's not referring to faith. It's important because the pronoun is capturing the entire section before it. Right.
At the very least, it's capturing verse 8, but in a way, it's almost capturing the entire sense of what I've read to you from 4 through 8. This whole thing. is not your doing. Why? Because you were dead.
Because you are dead. Dead people, here's what dead people don't do. Anything. You're dead. For by grace you've been saved through faith.
This is not your own doing, it's a gift. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
So what is it not? And we see it pretty clearly, right? The first is, in just in the Greek language, all it says is that it's not your own. Actually. It says own doing here is how the English translates it, but that's not what the Greek says.
The Greek just has the the the uh little pronoun umone. It's not yours. It's not yours. That's important, by the way, to note. That it's not yours.
Meaning you don't own it. You don't own it. Salvation belongs to the Lord. Your blessing be on your people. That means that it's God's sovereign gift to dispense it's not yours to obtain.
It's not in front of you to actualize. It's God's to give.
So the moment you think that you're participating in an enterprise to obtain something, you have the wrong origin. for salvation. It's his, not yours. It's not your own work. He makes that point very clearly.
And we need to emphasize this. For a few reasons.
Some misunderstanding. There's even some misunderstanding in how people even are processing theology. I've even seen some evangelical people processing theology pretty poorly in this regard. Let me give you a few scriptures. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.
This is this little adverb apart is important. Chorus The emphasis is that it doesn't have anything to do with the law.
Now One of the things I want you to note Is that in Romans chapter 3, verse 20, he says something quite similar to this? In fact, I'll read it for you. Romans 3. Verse 20. For by works of the law, no human Uh Being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
So You have this idea in Romans 3 that the works of the law will not justify.
Now, some people have said, yeah, but there's kind of a sacramentalism, there's sort of a system of things that we do as an expression of our belief, and that does contribute to us. Being not just transformed in one sense, ethically, but actually transformed spiritually. We're participating with grace. in this right and so religious systems are built on this idea And so they'll say something like, but works. In the Bible, they are not works of the law.
The works of the law are different. It's a complete misunderstanding of the context of the New Testament. In writing to Gentilic audiences, oftentimes, Paul in particular, will just speak of works. In writing to Jewish audiences, he will speak of works of the law. Works of the law and works are the same thing.
The point of using works of the law to Jews is simply to emphasize the notion of meritorious efforts. and what they could yield. How do I know that? Is there a textual way I know that? Yes, there is.
Romans 3, 28. Romans 3, 20. Then immediately after verse 28, we move into... Right? Chapter 4 In Romans, listen to Romans 4, 1 through 5.
What then shall we say was gained by Abraham our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified, declared to be right by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted him as righteousness.
Now, to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Here's what I want you to see. I want you to focus on the who is being spoken about. Abraham's works would not grant him Salvation.
Right? That's the point of the text. What was not in existence? When Abraham was alive. The law.
He predates the law.
So there's a movement from works of the law to Romans 4 saying works And they're overlapping in the context to point out that it's not just about a Jewish expectation, it's just about working at all. It can't get much clearer than Romans 11:6, but if it's by grace, it's no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace. If I get my Christmas gift and it costs $50 and I give you, you give it to me and I give you $15 for it. Mm, kind of a gift, not really, any more.
It's just cheap. It was a bargain. It's a bargain. That's it. It's not a gift.
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy by the washing and regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.
So It's not by Your participation in anything because it starts with him. Therefore, you can't work for it. And then finally, it's not an opportunity to boast in yourself. That's what he says.
So that no one may boast. Does the Bible talk about boasting? A lot. A lot about boasting actually. It's a very prominent word.
Paul in into the Corinthians talks about it like a ton. But let let me share with you. You can boast. You can bust. But just not in you.
For we are the circumcision who worship by the Spirit of God and glory. That's the same word that's used here for boasting. Who boast in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. We actually don't look at ourselves as the bees' knees or people who have accomplished something, instead, we look at Christ. But far be it from me to boast except In the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and out of the world.
So what do you boast about? You boast about Jesus. You acknowledge that your salvation has nothing to do with you and everything to do with Him. If you're here and you have never put your faith and trust in Christ, and you are a good person and you feel like you have cleaned up your life sufficiently, you haven't. You're actually in darkness.
And that darkness might feel like it is a project of moral enhancement to you. I want you to know it's Sisyphian, which means you're going to keep rolling that rock up to the top of the hill, and then life hits you and it comes back down upon you, and then you'll muster up the strength because, darn it all, you're an American. And you'll roll it up again. And it's going to come back down and knock you again. And you're going to go, I'm made of better stuff than this, and you'll roll it up again.
It's going to come back down again. And you're going to say, I was raised better than this. You're going to roll it up again. And it's going to come back down again. And you're going to go, the church I used to go to taught me that I could clean up my mess.
And you're going to roll it up again. It's going to come back down again. You know why it keeps coming back down? 'Cause you're dead. Because you're dead.
And only in Christ can you be made alive.
So my encouragement to you is come to him. Come do it. I grabbed somebody this morning, said I need to be made alive. I need to be made alive. Helmicula.
He'll do it. He'll transform you in ways you never imagined. And you'll feel life for the first time you've ever. Sniffed at it. You're here and you're a believer.
Uh don't let it grow old. On Peach the Peach. Have eyes to see. God, thank you for your love for us. Thanks for making us alive.
Thanks for giving us joy and gladness and hope. A song in our hearts. We rest in you, and we pray that you'll encourage us, Lord. Jesus name. Amen.
